Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition Meeting: All invited

Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition Meeting: All invited
Global Exchange is hosting this long-overdue meeting of the Fair Trade minds.

Who is the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition (BAFTC)?
The Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition is a group of consumers, students, non-profits, Fair Trade businesses, activists and community members working together to raise awareness and build demand for Fair Trade in the Bay Area.

Most importantly...BAFTC welcomes everyone – whether you’re new to Fair Trade and want to learn more or you're a seasoned Fair Trade pro...come join us.

Event Details:
Where: Global Exchange
2017 Mission Street, second floor
San Fransisco, CA. 94110
Date: Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Time: 6:30 pm—8 pm
Why: To galvanize the Fair Trade movement!
Attend this upcoming meeting to help support and re-energize the Bay Area Fair Trade movement.

Specific topics up for discussion:

• The vision of Fair Trade Towns and organize teams to achieve our goals
• The idea of a Fair Trade Towns Oakland and Berkeley campaigns
• Brainstorm strategies to make these initiatives into realities.

For more information: please visit the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition blog.

News Alert: Child Slaves Rescued from Cocoa Plantations

O.k. so this is big news, folks. Possibly one of the biggest Fair Trade news developments in years!
Basically, an Interpol-led operation conducted by the Cote d'Ivoire police resulted in the rescue of more than 50 children and the arrest of at least eight individuals for the illegal recruitment of children.

What does this have to do with Fair Trade? The children had been bought by cocoa (and palm) plantation owners looking for cheap (and illegal) labor to harvest the cocoa. As our friends at ILRF point out: The US Department of State estimates that more than 109,000 children in Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa industry work under “the worst forms of child labor,” and that some 10,000 are victims of human trafficking or enslavement.

This operation codenamed "BIA" (after the river separating Ghana from Cote d'Ivoire) clearly demonstrates the existence of child trafficking and forced labor within the region. Hopefully this rescue is the first of many more actions to come, and will demonstrate that illegally hiring and forcing children to do the cocoa industry's dirty work will not be tolerated.